Tend and Befriend vs. Fight and Flight

In “Relationships: Beginning, Middle, and End” on blogher, Liz Rizzo gives three examples of blogs by women describing different stages of relationship. According to Shelley Taylor, UCLA sociologist, connecting to each other is how women deal with stress.

So does blogging about our lives reduce stress?

90% of stress research has been on males. It took two women researchers at UCLA to notice that when the women in the lab were stressed, they hung out together. The men would hide out.

These smart women looked at the hormonal changes that occur in women during stress. Both men and women feel fear but our responses to fear are different. Men fight and flee. Oxytocin buffers our response. Women tend and befriend. And that tending and befriending stimulates more oxytocin. Its effect is calming.

I think of all the isolation of suburbia. No shared wells, no laundry at the river, no multigenerational households. Our one-way contact in books and tv aren’t quite enough. At least we have cell phones, email, blogs, and an occasional lunch.

I have to talk with my friend Nancy at least a few times a week. I have to check in with Susun. And then there’s Cathy and Laura. My daughter has become a different kind of connection know that she’s out on her own. And, not often enough, my mom.
I wonder. . .

How many marriages don’t make it because women don’t have enough contact with other women, become needy, and then, when their men can’t meet their need for connection, think that the problem is their marriage?